15October
I still remember spotting the little shivering pup on the verge of the A1 back in October. He was perched on the hard shoulder, soaked through and so tiny that the passing lorries seemed to glance at him as if they were waiting for someone. I had been driving out to my weekend cottage to fetch some new potatoes, slowed for a moment thinking Id just have a look, but the moment the creature lifted its head everything went wrong. The potatoes stayed in the ground for another week.
My neighbour, MrsEthel Hart, was the one who christened him Mars when she saw the reddish, floppyeared thing wobbling down my hallway.
Reddish, nosy, a bit clumsy, she chuckled. Marsperfect.
I laughed along with her then.
Mars grew fast. By spring he was claiming the whole left side of the sofa as his domain, and he acted as if that were his rightful inheritance. At first I scolded him, then I stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat felt worse than sharing the night with a dog that snores and occasionally kicks in his sleep.
Our friendship didnt blossom overnight; it settled in slowly, like two people who have nowhere in particular to rush. A morning walk, a bowl of food at seven in the evening, the television on for company. Sometimes Id talk aloud to Mars. Hed sit beside me, listening with a solemn expression, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth in a lazy grin.
Youre right, Id say. Enough now. And Id switch the telly off.
—
The accident happened in April on our way back from an evening stroll. The details are fuzzy. I remember the road slick, my car skidding onto the pavement at a corner, Mars on his leash, the leash snapping, my body flung onto the curb. I lay there for a few seconds, hearing only my own breathing and some distant cry.
When I got to my feet, Mars was gone. His leash lay on the asphalt, the plastic clasp broken clean in two.
I searched until midnight, covering three neighbourhood blocks, calling his name, asking passersby. Most just shook their heads. One man said hed seen a ginger dog dart toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but he hadnt seen where it went after that.
Back home I sat at the kitchen table staring at an empty food bowl. Eventually I got up, typed up a notice, printed twenty copies, and stuck them up around the estate the next morning. I also phoned three local vets and the animal shelter on Willow Lane.
If a ginger mixedbreed turns up, please give me a call. My number is, I told the voice on the other end.
A week passed. Then a month. The flyers faded under the May drizzle, so I replaced them. I did it again in June. The vets gave me no replies. The shelter called twice, both times by mistakeneither dog was ours.
In July MrsEthel, from just beyond the kitchen door, said cautiously, Victor, maybe you could take another dog. The shelters got plenty.
No, I answered. She didnt bring it up again.
The flat felt different without Mars. It wasnt empty, but everything stayed where it always had. The fridge hummed, the neighbours above started their morning chatter at half past nine as usual. Yet something had shifted.
I lifted an old rubber ball from the floorthe one Mars used to chase down the hallwayput it on the shelf, then tucked it away in a drawer, only to pull it out again later and set it back. In the mornings my hand still reached for the leash by the door, dangling there, though there was nowhere left to go.
I began taking the same walks alone, at the same time, down the same route, without really knowing why. I just walked.
In August my daughter, Grace, called from Manchester.
Dad, come and stay with us for a while, she said.
I cant, I replied.
Why?
I hesitated, then said, Maybe hell come back.
Grace was silent for a moment, then said Alright in that tone people use when they want to say something else but choose not to.
Mars returned in October. I heard a scratching at the front door around eight in the evening. At first I thought it was just the wind rattling the stairwell, but the sound came again, insistent, with pauses as if someone knew the door would open eventually.
I opened it.
There, on the mat, sat Mars. He was older nowhis coat trimmed in a few spots where old wounds must have been, a faint burn on his left side, and around his neck a leather collar, brown with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that read Buddy.
I stood there, stunned, as he stared back at me. His right ear hung loosely, a ragged orange patch on his forehead shaped like an uneven star, the same amber eyes edged with dark lashes.
Youve been somewhere, I whispered.
He stepped over the threshold, moving like a dog who knows the layout of his home by heart. He trotted right to his bowlstill empty, as always.
I shut the door, went to the kitchen, my hands trembling as I opened the fridge.
Alright, I muttered to myself. Alright.
The next morning I took him to the vet. They examined him, gave the necessary vaccinations, checked his microchip. I asked about the foreign collar. The vet lifted the tag and read aloud, Buddy.
Another name? I asked.
Someone must have given him that, the vet replied. He lived with someone for about six months, Im not sure where.
She looked at me, then at Mars, then back at me.
Dogs do that, she said. They wander off and sometimes find their way back, especially the clever ones.
I said nothing, just watched Mars sit on the stainlesssteel table, his expression unruffled as the vet worked.
On the back of the tag was a phone number. I called it from the car while Mars sat in the back seat, staring out the window.
After a few rings, a voice answered.
Hello?
This is Victor. You had a dogginger, you called him Buddy?
There was a long silence.
Yes, said a middleaged woman, her voice tired. He left us in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Another pause. Then, He was with us. We fed him, treated his wounds.
Thank you, I said. Hes a good dog.
Where do you live? she asked. On Birch Street?
Not exactly that area, I replied.
Oh my, she sighed. He just turned up by our fence in April, lay down and never left.
I watched the grey, leafless park outside the windshield, the bare poplars swaying.
The call ended on its own. I put the phone away. Mars snored softly on the back seat, his head resting on his folded paws.
At home I took the foreign collar off him, placed it on the table, and stared at it for a long while. Brown leather, brass buckle, the little Buddy tagwellmade, not cheap.
Six months with another family, and he still found his way back.
I thought of the woman from Birch Street, how she must have fed him daily, petted him, grown attached, only for him to disappear in September and her to keep searching, perhaps posting notices.
I dialed again.
Its me again, I said when she answered. If youd like to visit him, I dont mind.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She arrived on a Saturday. MrsGillian Hart, sixtyfour, in a grey coat and a basket full of apple jam and a sack of dog foodthe same brand Mars had grown used to over those six months.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt bolt, just nosed her hand and wagged his tail.
They sat down for tea. Gillian told how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, how frightened he was at first, then settled in. I recounted the crash, the broken leash, the flyers.
Mars lay between us on the floor, halfasleep, occasionally lifting his head to look at each of us.
He chose us both, Gillian said.
I looked at the dog, then at her.
Seems thats the case, I replied.
I put the foreign collar back into the desk drawer but didnt discard it.
Mars reclaimed the left side of the sofa and resumed his nightly ritual of chasing the ball down the hallway at one in the morning. The flyers on the lampposts soaked in November rain and fell off on their own.
Gillian visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice about blackcurrantsshe had a small garden on Birch Street, and I knew a thing or two about gardening. We talked while Mars dozed between us.
One evening I pulled the leather Buddy collar from the drawer, examined it under the lamp. The tag glinted.
Two leashes hung by the entryway: one red, worn, the other blue, new, which Gillian had quietly added on a recent Saturday without asking.
The days keep turning, but the house feels whole again, even if its different from how it was before Mars disappeared. The emptiness has been filled, not with the same silence, but with a quieter, steadier rhythmone Im learning to live with.
